


The World to Come

by tuppenny



Series: All Ways [6]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Mentions of a few other characters - Freeform, Wedding Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: A scene from Davey & Chaya's wedding
Relationships: David Jacobs/Chaya (OC)
Series: All Ways [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1039553
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	The World to Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WriteMeToHell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteMeToHell/gifts).



> For writemetohell, who asked for this from me in the small fic exchange that I set up and then missed the completion deadline for! (Sorry for being a little bit late; I hope you like it anyway.)
> 
> Here's the album I listened to on repeat while writing this: [Give Me Doubt](https://href.li/?https://open.spotify.com/album/5SI3xIuP5QhfJfQIBoMY7a?si=UcA56s98QMyvmFCqWcQpIQ)
> 
> Useful to know before you read: traditionally, Ashkenazi Jewish couples briefly retreat to a private room after the marriage ceremony in order to share a meal and/or talk with each other before reemerging to celebrate with their guests. This time away is called _yichud_. Depending on the interpretation you look at, the marriage is not complete until this segment of the ceremony takes place. Read more [here](https://href.li/?https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/477338/jewish/Yichud-Room.htm).
> 
> Rashi was a medieval Jewish rabbi who wrote a lot of really important commentary on the Talmud and Tanakh.

**September 1910**

David felt the glass give way beneath his foot, despite the thick soles of the shoes he’d bought for the wedding. He’d bought everything new for today, in fact; the gray wool suit, the matching vest that was cut lower than he was used to, the crisp white button-down and its detachable collar, the cotton undershirt, the pale blue tie and accompanying tiepin, the freshly-pressed trousers, the factory-made socks, the yarmulke…

He heard scattered cheers—from the younger Ashkenazim and his goyische friends, mostly—as he made a sharp twist of his heel, snapping the larger glass shards in two and grinding the smaller pieces into crystalline dust. He saw the rabbi’s mouth tighten slightly and looked over his shoulder to see Albert DaSilva whooping and Sal Gottlieb clapping and Katherine Kelly crying and Elmer Kasprzak with his stubby fingers in his mouth, whistling loud enough to shatter the broken wine glass into sand.

“Go on, then,” he heard Jack say from the back-left corner of the chuppah, “You two scoot off an’ make this marriage official!” David turned back around to take in Jack’s wide grin, the way his friend’s scarred hands clutched the post of the chuppah with a tight ferocity that showed just how much Jack wanted to get this right, how honored and nervous and overjoyed he was to be included in this wedding, how he knew Davey had ruffled some feathers by choosing a goy to hold one of the posts on his side of the chuppah, how determined he was to do David proud. David smiled slowly, his eyes crinkling and then closing as Les took one hand off of the chuppah and thumped David firmly on the back.

“You heard the man,” Les said, just as loud and cheerful at the age of twenty-one as he’d been when he was a fresh-faced child laborer, running through the streets of Manhattan, hawking papers to keep his family fed. He hadn’t done that in years, now, though, Davey mused; none of the 1899 strikers had, come to think of it. Not in ages.

David was grateful that the Jacobs family had found its footing again shortly after the turn of the century—and now he was married, a Columbia Law School graduate working in a Jewish legal practice near his parents’ apartment, and his sister was married with two children and another on the way, and his baby brother was a college man, fully grown and studying medicine on a scholarship at the College of the City of New York, and oh, it was hard to believe Les would graduate in nine months, wasn’t it? It’s hard to believe how fast time flies, David thought, reaching to clasp his brother’s shoulder. Hard to believe Les that was almost out of the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side, hard to believe that soon he’d have his own medical practice and find his own girl, hard to believe that in a few short months, two or three years at the most, he’d be the one standing in Davey’s spot under the chuppah, repeating the marriage vows and—Les’ voice cut into David’s reverie. “Get outta your head, _shmendrik_! Skedaddle already.”

David rolled his eyes at Les and turned to Chaya, who was flanked by her father and her sister, each dressed in outfits David knew they couldn’t afford after spending their entire savings on such a lavish wedding. His eyes flicked to the tables set up in the back of the dance hall and the sideboard sagging under the weight of roast chicken, potatoes, and almost-fresh fruit. Lavish indeed, although perhaps only by the standards of the Lower East Side; Jack and Katherine had had a string quartet in the service and an orchestra at the reception, bouquets of flowers so large he’d thought he’d gotten lost in a garden, food made by expert chefs and served by waiters wearing clothes nicer than the ones David was wearing now….

“Gathering wool again, Dovidle?” He startled and winced, meeting his bride’s eyes with a silent apology. She smiled and squeezed his hand, which had been wrapped around hers for so long that David could feel the sweat gathering between their palms. “Always thinking,” she said fondly, looking up at him with such tenderness that he felt his heart miss a beat. “My husband, the scholar.”

“Your husband, the luckiest man alive,” he breathed, reaching his left hand up to press it gently to her cheek. “How are you mine?”

She laughed. “Instead of asking that, _b’shert_ , think rather of Rashi, who once said that a man with a wife ‘is blessed that he has merited her, since through her he acquires the World to Come.’”

David met her wink with one of his own. “With all due respect to Rashi, I don’t know if I _have_ merited you, _neshama_.” Chaya blushed and tilted her head to nestle against his palm. “Still,” David said, running his index finger over her cheekbone, “I promise that every time I count my blessings, I will list you first among them.”

Chaya’s color rose even higher. “Even ahead of the World to Come?” She breathed, stretching out her right hand to wipe a bead of sweat away from his temple.

“Chaya,” he whispered, bending in to kiss her forehead. “You _are_ my World to Come.”

“I need to find you a good Talmudic study class,” she grumbled, the warmth in her eyes completely undercutting her feeble objection. “But I have to say, Dovid—I like your misinterpretation very much.”

David laughed, wondering if he’d ever before seen her unable to prioritize duty and reality over a fairytale moment. Fitting that happiness should finally overcome her at her wedding. He could not have asked for more. “Shall we go?” He asked, squeezing her hand again, ready to lead her to the private room where they would take a half hour to talk and eat and sit and breathe with each other, only each other, before returning to the larger hall as a fully (finally!) married couple.

“I will follow you anywhere,” she said, only half-answering the question he’d actually asked.

“I love you, too, Chaya,” he said softly, knowing what she’d meant. “So very much.”


End file.
